Ofjustice
by mgcrtr
Summary: Of or belonging to "Justice" - Oneshot/drabble collection inspired with quotes from The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood.
1. Ofangels

**Disclaimer:** Neither Young Justice nor _The Handmaid's Tale _are mine.

_A/N_: _The following (related) oneshots shall all be centered around quotes from the dystopia_ _novel_ The Handmaid's Tale _by Atwood. Themes/Oneshots not particularly tied to_ _the (wonderful) book, but nevertheless, do inspire the tiny scenes. Pairings/characters/genres used are probably from all over the world, though most likely angst-centric. No knowledge of the book required to read/understand, only an open imagination. :)  
_

...

"Angel makers, they used to call them; or was that something else?" - Offred from _The Handmaid's Tale _by Atwood

...

Artemis's father shoved through the door and her mother lunged after, spitting Vietnamese that Artemis couldn't understand then, can't remember enough to translate now. Her mother hurled syllables and then a knife. It missed; her father spun. He struck out and Jade yelled, their father's open palm hitting air. He slid back to avoid his wife's wild stab. Jade stumbled into the stove.

Artemis saw angels. Light. Full and bright. At night a rarity. At their home a rarity. Her family saw fire. Her mother screamed to run from the flames. Her father dragged Jade out the door. Her mother tore her from the light. Artemis reached back to it. Fingers claws and voice high, high, high. The sound of the angels. Piercing. Almost silent.

She squirmed from her mother's arms, hit the ground hard. Her mother threw her body over her as the angels screamed, took to the skies, the neighboring walls. Lots of heat. Lots of cracking. Talking. They talked to her, and Artemis's mother left in panic. The dark angel flew down, out of the stars in the sky, between the flames. Artemis screamed, reached out her singed arms, hair halfway to flames.

He flew her away, patted down her hair. The angel with wings. He took her from the wild dance of angels into the dark, dark, where the city lights didn't touch. Little angels flitted, danced through the grassy plane. Artemis reached for them with starved hands and burnt skin. They crawled over her body, went dark and then light.

Light and dark. Dark then light.

Her mother took her from the flying lights, using callused hands and blurted syllables.

That is her earliest memory.

Jade hid with Artemis in a closet that didn't close all the way.

Through the crack in the framing, Artemis saw her father hit their mother when she crawled away from him on the floor."Những gì đang xảy ra?" _What's going on? _Jade squeezed her sister's arm, a warning. "Làm cho họ dừng lại –" _Make them stop -_

"được yên tĩnh," Jade hissed. _Be quiet. _

Artemis watched her mother bleed through the strip of light. She closed her eyes, turned her face into her sister's Sunday shirt. Jade pulled away. Artemis's eyes fluttered up to stare into the back of the closet. She wished it was possible to close ears like eyes. _"_Tại sao cô ấy không chống…?" Jade's hand slammed over Artemis's mouth. _Why doesn't she fight…?_

"I'll tell you a story," Jade whispered, her eyes didn't look away from the fight - the beating. "If you stay quiet."

Artemis licked Jade's hand, and she jerked it away. "Anh?" _English?_

"_Anh_, yes, _Anh_ pig-twerp."

"Angels?"

"No. No angels. They don't exist."

"Saw I."

"Saw I? What type of – Listen, Arty," Jade said, trying to be soft, "You never saw any angel. Angels don't exist."

"Do."

Jade seethed. "They don't."

"Bạn đang nói dối." _You're a liar. _

"Nếu có là _angels_, thì tại sao không lưu bạn chưa?" _If there were angels, why haven't they saved you yet?_ "There are no angels. None. Not now. Not then. The world is like _Alice in Wonderland_. Nhầm lẫn, đau, và kinh hoàng." _Confusion, hurt, and horrors._

"Jade…"

"That's why Dad beats up Mom, because she is weak, holds onto fantasies. She takes us to church; she fills your head with _nonsense_."

"Bạn đang nói dối." _You're a liar. _

Jade wrenched her sister's blonde hair. Artemis screamed. Their father opened the closet and looked at Artemis's tearful face. "You should know better," he said, tearing her from her sister's arms.

"Không," their mother said around blood, unable to rise and take her child from her husband's grip. _No. _

Artemis's father pulled her by her blonde hair, deeper into the falling house. He taught her that Sportsmaster doesn't allow his children to cry.

In bed, not safe. No angels in the world; Jade told Artemis of _Alice in Wonderland. _The Queen killed, punishing without reason except for amusement.

Their mother now goes to church alone.

Artemis walked Gotham in the day, because the angels saved at night, and she was no angel. She listened to demands; she the Devil's servant with Lucifer's friend as her owner.

She thought angels came from fire - fire that lit the sky and burned out decay and disease. However, if that was the case then Artemis should've been an angel, risen from flames. She should've pulled others from fires instead of igniting them. She should've distributed food to the starving instead of eating it herself. She should've fletched arrows to hunt food instead of humans. She should've learned to skin roadkill instead of live animals.

She went out at night, because Sportsmaster demanded she learn to hunt angels. (He didn't call them that.) There were two of them she was supposed to track down, with twin black capes. She followed them over rooftop edges and down into alleys. She crept along after them into the "forest", growing between desolated buildings, crumbles, ruins, people as piles of fabric. The trees tall and half-dead, half-thriving, between Heaven and Hell.

She slid into the branches as the angels swooped in on mere pick-pockets. She drew back the bow, she had the shot, and a flittering angel crept into her vision. It blinked softly in the night. Light and dark. Dark then light.

Artemis dropped her stance. She reached out and captured the lightning bug. The angels with the capes turned on her as if she'd made a sound. They drove her back into the concrete maze, calling her names, laughing after her. She lunged into brick buildings smelling of feces. She dropped through the holes of leftover homes of cockroaches, pressed up against a grating wall, tore at her body. She held her breath, then went out.

She followed them into the light of fires and buildings, into the dark of the streets and alleys. The caped crusaders glinted white, they glinted red, like painted, dripping roses of Wonderland.

Artemis likes to pretend it is an angel that saved her (though her sister says it's a lie) even if the angel is inside her mind.

...

_All translation errors mine. ^^"_


	2. Ofskin

...

I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't want to see it. - Offred from _The Handmaid's Tale _by Atwood

...

Conner and M'gann have kissed, a lot.

She's mapped his torso extensively with her fingers pressing against the fabric of his shirt. But they've never done anything… on skin. He's touched her stomach underneath her clothing with feathery prods, afraid to linger, afraid to hurt. Once, he bit her lip and made it bleed. By accident, of course. Another time he left imprints of his fingers at her waist, on the back of her neck. But it was all in the moment.

She is in love. He is in love. They love each other.

The next step is to go further, to, to start taking off clothing.

They stand looking at each other. Stand, looking. They're in Conner's room that doesn't have all the mirrors like M'gann's room. M'gann chose the room, wanting Conner to be comfortable.

They're waiting for something, something from each other. M'gann floats an inch off the ground, her toes drooping downward. Conner looks left and right, left and right.

M'gann drops to the ground. Conner can hear the thump. He whips his head to stare at her. She takes half a step forward. Conner doesn't move. M'gann bites her lip.

"Do we just take it off?"

M'gann shakes her head. "No, no, I think we're supposed to take it off each other."

"Are you sure? Everyone's just naked in the shows Wally watches."

M'gann silently, quickly circles through the movies she's watched with Artemis, the "chick-flicks." Thinks through her motions on Artemis. "I'm pretty sure."

"Okay. I'll start." Conner reaches forward, M'gann steps back.

"You can't take clothing off of me. It's part of me."

"What do you do on Mars?"

"I… It's different because there are two of us who don't wear clothing." Conner scowls, and turns around. "Where are you –"

"Wait there."

M'gann slips to about an inch off the floor, craning her head to see what Conner was pulling from inside his closet. He wrenches a shirt from a hanger and pulls a wrinkled pair of pants off the ground. He comes back and stops the foot away from each other that they haven't yet breached today. He extends the bundle of clothing, and M'gann takes it.

"Put it on."

"But it's not –"

"It's clothing to take off of you, isn't it?"

M'gann hides her little grin, tugging on the too big t-shirt and too wide jeans. She straightens up and smooths down the rumples and takes a deep breath, dropping the makeshift clothing underneath. Or changing it rather, to a Martian-human mix. More human than anything. "Ready," she says to Conner who doesn't seem to know how to look with her wearing his lumpy clothing. She remembers seeing a scene where the girlfriend walked around in her boyfriend's sweatshirt and looked _good. _Artemis said guys find girls wearing their clothing _sexy. _Vaguely, M'gann wonders if it's the same way for girls.

"Okay." M'gann steps forward, closing the gap between them.

You don't want any space, Artemis told her. The closer you can get to him the better, makes it more intimate and you'll be sharing body heat, so it won't be as cold for either of you. Plus, plus.

Like this? M'gann asked, the two of them standing in the center of M'gann's room.

Artemis nodded. Good. She reached out and took M'gann hands and placed them at the bottom of her shirt. Conner's taller than I am, so you might want to ask him to erm, like, kneel or something.

M'gann takes a shallow breath and Conner looks down at the top of her head. She grips the fabric at Conner's waist and starts to pull bundle it up. Conner raises his arms without command, and M'gann floats the extra inches needed to pull the fabric off of Conner's body. He's all strong and muscular and pale. She can see where the sun hit his skin and where it obviously hasn't.

When M'gann lands, she has his shirt. She isn't sure if she should let it go to the ground or hand it back to Conner, if they're supposed to put it somewhere special. Or… She doesn't know what to do with it.

Artemis and her hadn't gone over that part. M'gann hadn't thought about asking what to do with the shirt once she had it.

But Conner solves the problem, uncurling her fingers to let the fabric fall, he places her hand against his chest. She adds her other hand to his skin, and they ghost down over muscle to his hips. Her breathing accelerates and her fingers dig at Conner's skin, but there's no give. His hands drop to her waist.

Artemis nodded in thought as M'gann asked what she was supposed to do once his shirt was off. It seemed the next logical step in, in being boyfriend and girlfriend, but…

Kiss him. Artemis said. That's the next thing. Kissing with clothing on is one thing, kissing without is totally different. Don't worry about him taking your shirt off right then. If he's like any other guys, I'm pretty sure he'll rip it off of you the moment he can.

But that's not… different.

Of course it is. He's half naked, you'll probably get turned on by it. Look, fine, if you don't believe me, we'll give it a shot. It's all about skin contact, trust me.

Artemis took her shirt back from M'gann hands and shrugged it on, not bothering to slide her bra back on. All right, Artemis said, kiss me.

But isn't… isn't that wrong because I am with Conner and –

Artemis interrupted her with a snort. We're not making out. I'm proving a point. Think of it like the kissing booth in that one movie. I'm just going some charitable work for you.

M'gann pressed her lips against Artemis's and then pulled back. Artemis snorted. I feel sorry for the person who you actually kiss like that.

M'gann flushed furiously, and then leaned in on Artemis again.

M'gann plans to float up to meet Conner's lips. But she shoots up, and their lips crash into each other. Conner grunts in surprise. He opens his mouth, she opens hers. They kiss, sloppy and wet. Her tongue twists with Conners and he picks her up in his arms. She shifts her position, her arms wrap around his neck. He drops her onto the bed. He dips a leg between hers.

He pulls back to let her breathe, and she slings her legs around his hips. He slides a hand under her shirt, his shirt. She arches her back at his chilly fingers. He tugs her shirt to above her breasts. She raises her arms, and he yanks it off.

The cold hits her, but then Conner presses against her. He's warm and smooth.

He feels human, like she must.

M'gann claws away. She morphs clothing back onto her body. She doesn't apologize as she tears off the pants Conner lent her and crashes over nothing to the door. She flies from him, left without his shirt on. She gets about three doors down before she's crying too hard to fly and she feels sick.

Physically sick, with vomit bubbling up in her throat. She doesn't even make it halfway to the bathroom before she throws up once, then twice.

Artemis pranced around M'gann room, waiting for the alien to come up with more questions. M'gann watched Artemis twist and turn her half naked body, looking at herself this way and that in the mirrors. M'gann watched Artemis tense her body into muscles and then release and the ridges of muscle disappeared.

You know, Artemis said, stopping in front of M'gann, hands on her hips. You're going to have to get used to walking in bare skin if you're ever going to do more with Conner.

I don't like it.

That's a lie. There is no possible way you can't like your skin. You have perfect-est body ever. No scars or blemishes, awkward birthmarks. If you don't like it, you can just change it. If I were you, I'd prance all around the town in human naked glory.

M'gann giggled, though it might've been a little forced.

Artemis stepped over to M'gann, kneeled at her feet. She pressed her hands on M'gann's fake sleeves, then down over her arms. Are you sure you don't want me to take it off?

You can't take it off, M'gann snapped. Artemis withdrew. It's my skin.

M'gann's white. She's roaring because she doesn't have the right set of vocal chords. Her hands are claws and her eyes are red. She crouches near the ground and she's crying only metaphorically, because she doesn't actually have tear ducts.

When Conner comes around the corner, she can't change back. He sees her in the ugly white form, with no clothing on, no deceitful fabric. M'gann reaches out with a clawed hand and links with his mind, because that's the only way she can talk.

_I'm naked now. _

M'gann feels the horror run through Conner's mind. The shock, deceit, confusion, hurt, sadness, frustration, acceptance. Understanding.

Conner takes off his shirt and then his pants and then his boxers like this is completely normal to him. To stand naked in a hallway of Mt. Justice. He's really pale with all his clothing off. He looks almost white where his skin isn't tanned; if you compared only skin color, the white Martian and clone could be from the same race.

"So am I."

M'gann guffaws, and Conner looks like he might be trying not to giggle. Conner does all her can to make M'gann feel comfortable, which isn't much, but means a lot.

It's still four hours before M'gann has enough control to change back. She doesn't let him touch her for fifteen with both their clothing on.

All they ever do is kiss.

...


End file.
